本篇文章共分 5 段，從珠江三角洲的地理位置、農業起源、歐洲帶來的商業營運，到絲綢業興盛等一連串的變化，說明此地區農業商業化的經歷與規模。

本篇考題英文原文與對應之中文翻譯整理如下。練習作答解題時若有對語意不清楚之處，請仔細查閱對照，以提升閱讀理解能力。

The Commercialization of Pearl River Agriculture 珠江農業的商業化

1. 珠江三角洲土壤肥沃農業發達

   The Pearl River Delta of southern China was an agriculturally rich region. Formed of alluvial soils that had been captured from the silt flowing down from the major rivers, these sand flats, as the Chinese called them, were worked and reworked until they became very productive rice paddies that by the sixteenth century annually produced two crops of rice and one of vegetables and wheat. Peasant farmers produced on their own plots much of the food the family consumed. However, agriculture in the region could not be called subsistence agriculture, for many nonfood commercial crops were grown and exchanged in markets that dotted the countryside. Besides rice, peasant farmers in the Pearl River Delta grew sugarcane, hemp, cotton, and mulberries to feed silkworms, among other crops.

   中國南部的珠江三角洲是一個農業發達的地區。由從主要河川流下的淤泥中捕獲的沖積土形成，這些沙地，正如中國人所稱，被加工和再加工，直到它們成為非常高產的稻田，到 16 世紀，每年生產兩輪稻米和一輪蔬菜和小麥。 農民在自己的農地裡生產自家消費的大部分食物。然而，該地區的農業不能被稱為自給自足的農業，因為該地種植許多非食品的商業作物，並在遍佈農村的市場上進行交易。除了水稻，珠江三角洲的農民還種植甘蔗、麻、棉花和餵養蠶的桑樹等作物。

2. 商業化開始

   But while commerce and market exchanges were an important part of the rural economy until about 1550, the rural economy was not commercialized. As the population grew from 1400 to 1550, the gross volume of crops marketed and the number of rural markets both increased, but they did so at the rate of population growth. The proportion of agricultural land devoted to commercial crops in 1550 was about what it had been in 1400. But after 1550 the agricultural economy of the region became highly commercialized. Markets and marketing activity expanded at a rate faster than that of the population.

   但是，雖然商業和市場交易是農村經濟的重要組成部分，直到 1550 年左右，農村經濟還沒有商業化。隨著 1400 年至 1550 年人口的增長，農作物的銷售總量和農村市場的數量都在增加，但它們是以人口增長的速度增加的。1550 年，用於商業作物的農業用地比例與 1400 年時差不多。但 1550 年後，該地區的農業經濟變得高度商業化。市場和營銷活動的擴張速度超過了人口的擴張速度。

3. 歐洲帶來的商業運作

   The most immediate stimulus for the commercialization of the economy was the new demand for Chinese goods — in particular silk and porcelains — from European traders who arrived in the South China Sea in the sixteenth century. For the Pearl River region, the critical trade flow was triangular, linked by the Portuguese. Either with their own funds or with silver that Japanese merchants supplied, Portuguese traders headed up the Pearl River to biannual fairs in the city of Guangzhou where they exchanged silver for export goods. These goods were loaded onto ships bound for the Japanese city of Nagasaki. Japanese merchants in Nagasaki paid in silver for the Chinese goods, launching another round of trade. Trade through Manila, in the Philippines, also brought silver into the South China economy. Chinese merchants from Guangdong and Fujian provinces sailed to Manila with their goods, which the Spanish bought with silver. From there the silver flowed back to China as the Chinese commodities found their way to Europe. By 1600 this trade resulted in an annual inflow of perhaps 200,000 kilograms of silver into the coastal economies of south and southeast China.

   對經濟商業化最直接的刺激是 16 世紀抵達中國南海的歐洲商人對中國商品的新需求—特別是絲綢和瓷器。對於珠江地區來說，關鍵的貿易流動是由葡萄牙人連接起來的三角貿易。葡萄牙商人用自己的資金或日本商人提供的白銀，沿著珠江前往廣州一年兩次的交易會，在那裡他們用白銀換取出口貨物，這些貨物被裝上開往日本城市長崎的船隻，長崎的日本商人用白銀支付中國貨物，展開另一輪貿易。通過菲律賓的馬尼拉進行的貿易，也為華南經濟帶來了白銀。來自廣東和福建的中國商人帶著他們的貨物航行到馬尼拉，西班牙人用白銀購買了這些貨物。隨著中國商品進入歐洲，白銀則從馬尼拉回流回中國。到 1600 年，這種貿易使得每年大約有 20 萬公斤的白銀流入中國南部和東南部的沿海經濟。

4. 農漁組合

   In the Pearl River Delta, the silk industry developed on a base that was first created by the sand-flat fields and then a particular combination of fish ponds with fruit trees. In the fifteenth century peasant farmers in the Pearl River Delta began replacing some of their sand-flat rice fields with fishponds, probably in response to increased demand from Guangzhou. On the embankments, peasant farmers in the early Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) mostly planted fruit trees, giving rise to the fruit tree and fishpond combination. The carp fed on organic matter that either dropped or was thrown into the pond, while the mud scooped up from the pond fertilized the fruit trees and the rice fields and added height to the embankments and more protection for the fishponds.

   在珠江三角洲，絲綢業是在一個最初由沙坪田地和魚塘與果樹的特殊組合形成的基礎上發展起來的。十五世紀時，珠江三角洲的農民開始用魚塘取代他們的一些沙坪稻田，這可能是為了應對來自廣州的需求增加。在堤壩上，明朝初年（1368-1644 年）的農民大多種植果樹，產生了果樹和魚塘的組合。鯉魚以掉入或扔入池塘的有機物為食，而從池塘中舀出的泥漿則為果樹和稻田施肥，並增加了堤壩的高度和對魚塘的保護。

5. 絲綢業規模

   The fruit tree and fishpond culture provided a ready-made base for expansion of the silk industry. As the demand for silk increased, peasant farmers replaced the fruit trees with mulberry trees (silkworms feed on mulberry leaves) and then began digging up even more rice paddies to expand this system. By 1581 in the Longshan area of Shunde county, for example, eighteen percent of the productive land was fishponds and, combined with the mulberry trees on the embankments, accounted for about thirty percent of the cultivated land area.

   果樹和魚塘文化為絲綢業的發展提供了現成的基礎。隨著對絲綢需求的增加，農民用桑樹取代了果樹（蠶以桑葉為食），然後開始挖掘更多的稻田來擴大此一系統。以順德縣龍山地區為例，到 1581 年，18% 的生產用地是魚塘，加上堤壩上的桑樹，約占耕地面積的 30%。